Lazy Afternoons
by Redlance-ck
Summary: She could not see the room for sheets. Bering and Wells fluff.


**Disclaimer: **Characters of Warehouse 13 do not belong to me, sadly. I'm just borrowing them for a while, but I'll put them back once I'm done.

**A/N:** For winged-mammal. The Sheet Fort Queen of our hearts. This is kind of just some cracky-fluffy-good times.

Thank you to everyone who left a review for my last fic. I can't express how awesome it was to recieve such great feedback!

* * *

In the time she had spent at Leena's Bed and Breakfast, prior to her bout of shall we say 'mental illness' and subsequent removal from both the establishment and the Warehouse itself, Helena had found the place to be endlessly charming and delightfully dull. Not in a sense of lighting, nor in terms of décor, but rather in regard to the everyday happenings that went on within the walls.

While it was true that during those early morning hours, when the occupants of the upstairs rooms began to rise and go about their haphazardly thrown together daily routines, could be somewhat manic and indeed rather loud, Helena had found herself hard pressed to find a memory that portrayed such feelings of ease and comfort to match those she felt whilst indulging in lazy afternoons or evenings spent in the sunroom or den of the place she'd come to think of as her home. That certain memories evoked in her a different kind of happiness and comfort she could not deny, but those memories were and would remain just that; different. They were memories that found her sharing the company of her beloved daughter or Catarunga, or her long departed brother, and while they were undeniably precious to her, that which had become an indispensable constant to her in this new world was vacant from them.

And Helena had found that there was little that could compare to wiling away the uneventful hours with Myka, whether the passage of time witnessed them reading or talking over all manner of things, or any number of activities another might witness and think menial. To Helena, each instance was treasured and to be replicated by nothing else. Every millisecond of apparent mundaneness she would trade for nothing and that thought always gave her pause. Because there had been a time when she would have traded anything for the life of her Christina, and that she would no longer only served to remind her that she had come so very far along the path of recovery. And Myka was no small part in that.

Suffice it to say, the Bed and Breakfast saw few happenings that jostled the serenity that usually blanketed the place and those lazy afternoons and evenings passed with the same similar course of ordinary events that they always did.

Which was precisely why H.G. thought little of it when she received a text message from Myka beckoning her to the upper floor of the boarding house, she simply smiled at the woman's penchant for refusing to move once she'd found herself in a comfortable position and left the confines of the kitchen where she'd just finished preparing a steaming mug of tea for herself. That was one of the many boons of the twenty-first century; being able to drink tea out of a cup bigger than a thimble.

Sliding her phone into the pocket of the thin grey trousers she'd donned that morning and then cupping both hands around the mug that cheerfully proclaimed "Kiss me! I'm English" – a present from Claudia – in bold red and blue letters, H.G. ascended the stairs to the second level. And still, there was nothing to alert her to the fact that this afternoon would be in any way out of the ordinary. Indeed, it wasn't until she opened the door to Myka's room only to find it empty that her suspicions were piqued. Turning on her heel, Helena fixed her gaze on her own door, standing in its usual place at the opposite end of the hallway, and eyed it with not a little intrigue. Pursing her lips, she thoughtfully tapped her fingertips against the side of her mug and then lifted it to her mouth to take a sip, before striding forward mid-swallow. She reached her door in moments and then halted before it wearing a look that would better be directed at something that actually didn't belong at the edge of a hallway. Still, Helena continued to peer curiously at the obstruction for a few seconds longer, removing a hand from its place curled around the mug and reaching out to cautiously finger the door knob.

Her wariness was not entirely inexplicable. They almost always convened in Myka's room, as Helena felt it to be the more homey, cosier, of the two and had on a number of occasions confessed that she simply felt more comfortable and more at peace surrounded by things that belonged to the other woman. Helena's room at Leena's was sparsely decorated and was furnished with the bare necessities, accents coming in the form of thing she'd acquired during her post-bronze era and one or two things she'd 'liberated' from her crates at the Warehouse. She did not find her room to be warm or welcoming in the slightest and simply looked upon it as a place where she occasionally found she had to spend a portion of her day, usually to dress and little more, because Myka's room had become the setting for sleep and idle late-night lounging – among other things. That Myka had chosen to apparently spend their few hours apart sat in H.G.'s room was somewhat odd indeed and, of course, ever the investigator, Helena felt the urge to slake her often insurmountable curiosity pull at her in a way that would not be denied. So, sliding her fingers so that they grasped the doorknob, she twisted and then pushed.

The first, and most dominant in that instant, emotion she felt was shock, followed quickly by utter befuddlement; she could not see the room for sheets. What had to have started out as a veritable small mountain of them had been thrown about the room in a fashion that seemed haphazard at first, but Helena was quickly able to decipher some kind of method behind the madness. She could find no sense for it however and so she stood in the doorway, likely gaping, still limply grasping the doorknob with one hand and holding more tightly to her mug with the other. Finally able to wrench her gaze away from the sheets that were, somehow, hanging from the far left wall, H.G. spotted Myka kneeling inside the cave-like entrance with her back to her.

"Myka, what on earth-" The hunched brunette shuffled about to face her and the beaming grin she set upon the inventor levelled the rest of Helena's sentence.

"You found me." Myka said, crawling out of her cave on her hands and knees.

"Along with the multitude of unending wonders you seem intent on surprising me with." Helena remarked, glancing around the room. "Darling, did a laundrette explode in here by chance?" Myka chuckled and H.G. offered her a hand, which the still grinning woman took without hesitancy and clambered to her feet. Without missing a beat, Helena swung the hand still clutching her cup to one side, leaving Myka the room she required to step into her personal space. Ducking her head, the taller woman hummed aloud as she pressed a chaste kiss to the inventor's quirked lips.

"Nope." She looped her arms around Helena's neck and lapsed into an unexpected silence. Raising an eyebrow, H.G. set her dark gaze around the room and spent a few seconds taking everything in properly. She then turned her attention back to the woman who had her entirely enveloped in more ways than one.

"Are we perhaps preparing for some kind of indoor sandstorm?" Myka shook her head, her obvious elation warming Helena from the inside out. "A camping excursion?"

"Nuh uh." She felt one of Myka's hands slip from its place against her neck to trail the length of her arm and coerce her own away from the doorknob. Lacing their fingers together, Myka leaned in for a second, equally chaste kiss. "Remember how we were discussing the things we used to do when we were kids?" Licking her lips and pretending to think it over, Helena nodded slowly and curved her lips into a smile.

"Yes, though I believe the word I used was 'children', as I'm not overly fond of referring to any youth as a goat." She paused, pursing her lips as a thought hit her. "Though certain other four letter words-" A swift bump of their joined hands to her thigh put a halt to that particular train of thought.

"Okay, well, you know how I talked about-"

"Blanket forts." Helena interrupted, their conversation from the previous evening and the state of their current surroundings finally melding into sense.

"Sheet forts," Myka corrected gently, "but yeah." She let her arm drop from around Helena's neck and took a step backwards, leaving their fingers intertwined and absently rubbing at the back of her neck with her free one. "I was kind of devastated by the idea that you never got to make them. I mean, that's kind of like a kid rule." She turned so that she was half facing the sheet-covered room and Helena lifted her mug to her mouth, taking a sip of her tea.

"And we know how you feel about rules." She quipped over the rim, dark eyes glittering with mirth that Myka's smile echoed.

"Right." Extending a hand, Myka waved it towards the haphazard structure. "So, I built you one." And she seemed so sheepishly proud of her accomplishment, so filled with child-like glee over what she'd done, that even if Helena had not been touched by it she'd have had no trouble feigning some sense of awe in order to ensure Myka's expression of happiness and air of excitement remained. However, that did not rule out teasing and never having before been afforded an opportunity to go over sheet fort protocol, there were certain things Helena was somewhat confused about. She gave Myka's hand a squeeze.

"And what exactly do you plan to do with it now that it's built?" Grinning sidelong at the inventor, Myka tugged gently at the hand in hers and stepped toward her creation.

"**We**," she said pointedly, "are going to sit in it." Helena quirked both eyebrows but said nothing as she was pulled forward, attempting to pause only briefly in order to find a suitable place for her to rest her drink. It hit in her in that instance, with the kind of bemused hilarity that most astounding realizations usually smacked a person with, that her room was about as unfamiliar to her as one she had never stepped foot in might be. Had it been Myka's room that they were occupying, she'd know that there would be a perfect spot no more than a few feet from her masquerading as a bedside table.

"Oh, you can bring it in." Myka said over her shoulder, still smiling. "I made sure there was a designated area big enough to support a giant mug of tea." And Helena felt warmth bloom within her chest. Withdrawing her hand, Myka dropped to her knees and crawled through the makeshift doorway of the sheet fort and H.G. blinked down at her for all of a few seconds before she followed.

Once inside, Helena found herself in what appeared to be the main area of the structure, but could spot a small opening off to the left. Settling, she hummed aloud and set her gaze around the interior before glancing askance at Myka. The woman looked to be on the very edge of pins and needles, albeit in a rather subdued manner, legs crossed beneath her and her fingers fidgeting uselessly on her lap.

"It's quite homey." She finally said after an extremely pregnant pause, then curved her lips into what experience had taught was a devastatingly charming smirk. "Though I'm inclined to think that has more to do with the company rather than anything else." After a few heartbeats, Myka exhaled quietly and rolled her eyes at H.G.'s words, though the sentiment behind them had effected her and Helena could tell as much from the way in which she rolled them. There was no exasperation behind the motion as there might have been if directed at Pete, and there was a distinct lack of the annoyance that usually had green orbs moving when Artie was present. Instead, there was the hesitancy before and a lingering glance afterwards, both of which told H.G. that Myka knew all too well of said 'experience', but that she was more than happy to be reaping the benefits of the practise. Helena felt her heart jump, felt it jovially skip along her ribcage as Myka leaned forward and brushed their fingers together as she lifted the mug from H.G.'s grasp to place it atop a tiny green plastic table beside her. The raven-haired woman blinked at it, a grin rapidly spreading across her face. "And you've even adorned it with appropriately sized furniture. How charming." Myka huffed at the teasing comment.

"If you're going to spend any time inside a sheet fort, these kinds of things are required." She informed the inventor, somewhat snootily, and Helena couldn't help but chuckle as she nodded her head and let her gaze wander around the space once more.

They were sat on cushions that looked suspiciously like the ones belonging to the sofa in the living room downstairs and from hers Helena toed the edge of a stack of books they had been set across from them on one side of the entryway.

"Are we to indulge ourselves in some literary catch-up?" She asked, reaching forward to pluck the topmost volume from the pile. They'd often talked about just how much there was for Helena to catch up on in the world of literature and she remembered Myka graciously offering up her own small library for H.G. to peruse. But that had been before, and Helena's mind had been far too focused on other, much darker things to ever take proper advantage of the offer. Then there had been the pesky problem of being a hologram which burdened her with the unfortunate inability to actually touch anything. Then, she'd been dead. However, since her return she'd found herself in possession of rather a lot of downtime, though most of that had seen her hands far too busy with **another** fine piece of work, and she still hadn't had much chance to scratch the surface of that veritable mountain of books that part of her was so looking forward to becoming lost in.

In her periphery she saw Myka watching her with a smile as she turned the blue leather-bound book over to read the spine.

"Is this not a tad lengthy for an afternoon's reading?" She queried after a moment, lifting her eyes from where they were tracing the author's name to meet those sparkling a forest green in the dim light.

"Maybe." Reaching out a long arm, Myka snatched up the next book and glanced at the image on the dust jacket. "But that's why I'm leaving them in here, so you can work through them at your own excruciatingly leisurely pace." Helena was a very thorough reader; it had been one of the first things that Myka had learned once the former Warehouse 12 agent had become a lodger under Leena's roof and they'd begun spending time together. It was not entirely inconceivable for Myka to finish two or three books in the time it took for H.G. to finish a single novel and while Myka had no idea why it drove her so crazy, it did. Helena had argued that she merely took more time than most to appreciate every thoughtfully selected word and commit it to memory, to which Myka had challenged her to recite the first page of 'As You Like It'. Helena had dryly commented that she'd never quite seen what all the fuss over The Bard was about, but had gone on to quote it perfectly regardless.

"So, what is it exactly you'd do to pass the afternoon beneath your brilliantly fashioned linen canopy?" Helena queried after a moment or two spent perusing the books. Myka gave a little half-shrug and then brought her knees up to her chest, wrapping long arms around them and tilting her head.

"Eat ice-cream. My Mom would bring me sandwiches sometimes for lunch, but I pretty much just read-" She stopped abruptly, eyes going wide before darting to the woman sitting beside her. Helena raised her eyebrows in question and then blinked in surprise as she detected the faint blush slowly making its way along Myka's neck.

"Are you all right?" Mutely, Myka nodded, lips curving into a small and almost shy smile.

"I've just realised that I'm sitting in a sheet fort... with H.G. Wells." Helena blinked pointedly once more, slower and more bemusedly, and Myka couldn't help but chuckle at herself. She rested her chin atop her knees and stared at the woman before her. "I used to sit in them for hours reading yours books, over and over again." H.G. made a noise of understanding low in her throat the teased the hairs on Myka's arms into rising, her dark eyes glimmering in the dim light of the fort.

"Quite the dedicated fan, were you?" The inventor almost purred, lips sliding into a quietly seductive smirk that never failed to make Myka's heart beat that little bit faster. Myka cocked her head to the side and stared at Helena, openly trailing her eyes along the length of her until they once more met her curious gaze.

"Oh, I still am." She was unsure whether or not it was the way Myka said it, perhaps it was the blatant seductive air with which she said the words, or the way H.G. felt she was being visually devoured, but she suddenly felt warmth rush through her in a way she'd never have expected it to whilst inside a sheet fort. Smirk still more or less in place, Helena leaned over, careful to avoid bumping the little plastic table with her knee, and reached out to cup Myka's cheek.

"You are quite enchanting," she said, breath ghosting across Myka's parting lips, "Agent Bering." She felt Myka smile and then closed the remaining distance between them.

Kissing Myka was not terribly unlike being shot with a tesla, something Helena did, unfortunately, know a little about. Trial runs, and all that. They were similar in that they both knocked you for six and their effects didn't seem to wane in the slightest with the passing of time. One could not 'get used to' having one's nerves electrified, and the same could be said for kissing Myka. That Helena could do this, simply lean across and indulge herself by giving into an urge that had been rearing its head since before everything had... well, since **before**, was something she still found extraordinary. Like the night sky or a solar eclipse. It had taken her far longer than she'd like to admit to 'allow' it to happen, however. To actually initiate anything. Myka had been the one to make the first move, or was it the final move, and had taken matters into her own hands when Helena had persistently remained less that forthcoming. It hadn't been for a lack of wanting though. Helena had never wanted another person quite so much in her entire life, it was a lack of belief in her own self-worth that had her stalling, glancing around like an embarrassed school girl and then excusing herself when Myka pushed things a little further than they'd been pushed before. But eventually, and at the beseeching of her beloved, Helena had finally admitted to herself that maybe she did deserve happiness. Maybe she did deserve Myka. As much as anyone could deserve Myka.

Which had all paved the way for moments such as this.

Languidly sweeping the tip of her tongue across the other woman's lower lip, H.G. revelled in the contented sigh that left Myka as she slipped the slender fingers of one hand into silken black tresses and tried to pull Helena closer. Taking her had from Myka's cheek and sliding from her cushion, the inventor moved with the grace of a cat across the floor until she was kneeling before the taller woman, their lips not parting for longer than a second as she allowed herself to be drawn in. Everything about the woman intoxicated Helena. From the way she moved to the way she smelled, H.G. took it all in and always found herself desperate for more. She angled her head down, the new position placing her at an unusual height difference, and sank into the kiss, allowing it to sweep her consciousness away, like a wave carries a beach ball out to sea.

She slid the fingers of both her hands beneath the thin material of the t-shirt Myka was wearing and let their tips dance wavy lines across the warm skin they found. The taller woman hummed contentedly into the kiss and Helena allowed herself to yield her control of it, instead choosing to anticipate and then enjoy the pleasant roiling in her stomach that never failed to make an appearance whenever Myka took charge in moments such as these. She became a gentle participant as she revelled in the feeling of Myka's tongue brushing against her own with an assured firmness. Helena could not recall any past lover unravelling her from the inside out, but Myka seemed to succeed at every attempt with all the effort of tugging at a loose cardigan thread.

Helena urged her hands along the length of Myka's sides, pushing the shirt along with them, and she felt the goosebumps break out across her fellow agent's flesh as the pads of her fingers brushed the sensitive skin at the sides of her ribs. Myka shuddered and dropped her hand to rest against Helena's neck, fingernails lightly scratching at the spot where the base of her skull joined it. The inventor inhaled noisily through her nose, the other woman's ministrations waking the part of her she'd allowed to lie dormant for the moment, and she pressed herself forward, now battling for dominance. With no further preamble, her right hand came up to round the swell of Myka's bra-clad breast and she caught a full lip between her teeth long enough to nip at it as the other woman gasped and broke the kiss. Blinking open dark eyes and idly letting her hands drop to the other woman's hips, H.G. took in the sight of a flustered and slightly rumpled Myka Bering with more than a little sense of arousal; tousled hair, kiss-swollen lips, eyes smouldering and heavy-lidded. She looked like a dishevelled goddess. Myka chuckled, the sound low and throaty through desire, and then spoke in a rough voice as she pressed their foreheads together.

"The things you do to me." Helena archly rose an eyebrow and hummed aloud, licking her lips in a slow, suggestive manner that made Myka's mouth curve upwards.

"The things I'd **like** to do to you." She smirked, watching as Myka inhaled a little more sharply at the statement, tilting her head against Helena's as if she were trying to work out a kink in her neck. And then she felt arousal tug forcefully at the pit of her stomach when her gaze was met with one of sultry challenge.

"Promises, promises, Agent Wells." And there were few things that could make Helena lose her rigidly maintained, nineteenth-century English composure.

But Myka Bering was at the very top of that short list.

There was shuffle then, as Myka eyed the second entryway that Helena had noticed on the way in, and assumed led further into the sheet fort, and they both grinned as they leapt for it.

Inside, Myka had created a veritable floor of cushions, some pulled from the bed and others resembling the ones that Helena was sure had been snatched up from the living room settee. Wherever they had come from, they obviously made for a rather comfortable landing spot, the evidence to which was proffered as Myka twisted her body to collapse with her back upon them. Her eyes widened and she laughed, loud and possibly even slightly manic as her vision was obscured by black hair and pale, perfect features. Helena's surge forward halted short of them bumping heads and she pressed her hands into the soft cushions on either side of Myka as she shifted to straddle long legs. She hovered over the woman beneath her, low enough for her breath to dance along Myka's curved lips, and she smiled.

"Do you have any idea how much I adore the sound of your laughter?" She queried, utterly serious. Myka wrinkled her nose and blew out a breath of self-conscious denial.

"It's really more of a guffaw." Helena chuckled airily, ducking her head to place light kisses against Myka's neck.

"It's music." She retorted, smiling privately as she felt Myka angle her head to allow for better access.

"Seventy-six Trombones, maybe." Helena pulled back slightly and pursed her lips.

"I'm not entirely sure I understand the reference," she began, "but I'm rather violently disinclined to accept such an absurd notion." Full lips curved into a grin as Myka reached up to tuck silken strands of inky black tresses behind H.G.'s ear. The inventor fingered the tassels belonging to one of the cushions beside Myka's head and she smirked. "Do tell me that the afternoon's festivities will see us partaking in one of your famed 'pillow fights'." And Myka laughed again, rolling her eyes and dropping her hand to shove playfully at the looming woman's shoulder.

"I told you," and Myka's tone was so wonderfully warning, "regardless of what Pete says, not all girls actually bounce around in their underwear pelting each other with pillows. My fights always saw victor and loser fully clothed, thank you very much." Helena made a show of sighing dramatically and drawing her lips down into a pout, before sliding them into a sly smile.

"Well, that doesn't mean we can't start a trend." And the music rang out once more.

* * *

Pete always took the stairs two at a time. He'd done it that way every since he'd discovered he was big enough to take them two at a time and hadn't really progressed mentally too far from that age anyway, so he never thought about ascending them in a more 'adult' manner. Besides, adult stuff was boring. Give him his comic books and action figures, and the rest of the world could keep their legal drinking age and electricity bills.

His slightly out-of-tune mumbling of an eighties' hair-band anthem wavered a little as he stumbled up the last step and almost lost his balance. But he was surprisingly agile and managed to regain it before toppling butt-first towards a very sore back. He fist-pumped the air, congratulating himself on his save, and then paused.

H.G.'s door was open.

He cocked his head to the side and stared at it.

H.G.'s door was never open. Pete could probably count on one hand the number of times he'd seen the inventor leave the room and he was pretty sure the only time she went in there was to retrieve an article of clothing that there hadn't been room for her to store in Myka's closet.

Because Myka and H.G. were a thing, and everyone knew they were a thing, that they shared things and did things and-

He shook his head a little too violently.

"Bad thoughts." He whispered, padding towards the open door as his curiosity took hold and yanked him along by his leash.

It was like his childhood had come to life before his eyes. There was a sheet fort in the middle of H.G. Wells' bedroom. No, not in the middle, it envelope the entire space, and as he gazed at it he felt his barely hidden inner-child almost explode with excitement.

"This is so awesome!" And it wasn't until the words had passed his lips and silence filled the long paused that followed that he realised the reason it seemed to quiet was because there had been faint, though entirely detectable had he just been paying attention, noises emanating from inside the fort only seconds before he'd opened his mouth.

Noises that, bouncing back and forth off the walls of his mind like a ricocheting tennis ball, sounded a lot like breathy whimpers and moans and-

Oh no.

His Spidey-Sense was tingling.

There came the sound of shuffling, muffled behind the layers of blankets and sheets, and he could do little more than stand there dumbstruck as a dark head finally emerged from the opening at the fort's front.

"Agent Lattimer." He couldn't find the words to answer. Because H.G. was crawling towards him, wearing a half-buttoned shirt and **nothing** else, and he was a guy, which meant it was actually impossible for enough blood to be pumped to his brain to allow for that kind of functioning while it was also being diverted to, well, other places. He swallowed hard as she stood, pale legs bare and lean, dripping seduction that he was sure was unintended and yet still garnered the same effect. He backed up a little as she sauntered towards him, her smile both pleasant and dangerous, and entirely unnerving. "I fear I must apologise in the face of your obvious excitement." Her eyes dropped and he shifted, even though there was most definitely no need for him to. Nope. "This sheet fort," and even to him the words seemed strange leaving her, "is currently occupied."

"No, no. I mean, yes, it is. And you're," he waved a hand uselessly towards her, "obviously busy. With Myka. She's my partner." He finished dumbly, and then blinked stupidly at the inventor whose smirk widened.

"I'd be rather inclined to argue that she's very much my partner at the moment." At that, Myka's sharp voice rang out from somewhere amidst the myriad blankets.

"Helena! Stop, stop teasing him and get back in here!" Chuckling, H.G. curled her hand around the edge of the door.

"Good afternoon, Peter." She said by way of dismissal and Pete stood unmoving as he let the door be closed in his face.

Of course, there were **some** adult things he'd take even over his comic books.


End file.
